Reborn Yesterday - Tessa Bailey Page 0,73

Roksana drawled.

“This basement is a fire trap and the alley out back doesn’t exit to a street. Coincidentally, if something happens to you, Jonas is going to set fire to my insides.” Tucker held up his hands, palms out. “His words, not mine.”

“How am I supposed to auction off my dresses if you’re scaring everyone away?”

Roksana shrugged a shoulder. “We could bid.”

Tucker batted his eyelashes. “Do you have anything in turquoise?”

Ginny slumped. She’d harbored no delusions that she would arrive tonight and suddenly be the belle of the ball. But she’d hoped, at the very least, her dresses would speak for themselves. That unlike the meetings, the expo would place the members on an even playing field. Not everyone in the room knew she was Death Girl, did they?

Determined to keep her optimism, Ginny took her next dress out of its garment bag and arranged it on the mannequin. As she was doing so, someone called her name from across the room and she turned to wave at Gordon. He stood with his mother at the cookies and coffee table in a suit and tie. And wasn’t that nice of him to get dressed up for his mother’s dress club, even if he looked distinctly uncomfortable fidgeting with his collar?

Yes, it was nice. A lot nicer than buying half of her funeral home without telling her first and then surrounding her in people repellent à la Tucker and Roksana.

Lord, that sounded mean-spirited of her. She was grateful for the protection of her friends, but Jonas being high handed and princely was only going to work if she had some input into the decisions that affected her.

A hot poker prodded Ginny in the sternum.

Anger?

Yes, that was anger.

In fact, she couldn’t wait for Jonas to arrive so she could express it. As soon as he walked in, she was going to march right up to him and…and ask to speak to him privately! After all, she didn’t want to make a scene. She just needed him to realize she wasn’t going to live her life like a dog’s favorite bone, constantly being buried for her own protection—and without her consent!

An elderly woman with a sweet smile approached the table. Ginny shot Roksana and Tucker a warning glance over her shoulder before welcoming the potential customer. A dress customer, not a funeral home customer, although her advanced age did technically qualify her for both. Don’t be dark. You’re selling dresses tonight, not coffins. “Hello,” Ginny said brightly. “Are you having a nice time?”

“Yes, I am. Thank you.” The woman re-shouldered her purse and leaned in to admire Ginny’s Christmas dress. “This one caught my eye across the room. Look at the holly detail—I love it!”

“Less talk, more bidding,” Roksana called, smacking her gum.

Ginny brandished a pin at the slayer and imbedded it in the table, in the V between her index and middle fingers.

Roksana looked impressed. “Just trying to help.”

“I would like to bid, actually.” The woman seemed wary about approaching the table. Could anyone blame her? She’d just managed to pick up the little, square bidding sheet when a voice split the air.

“I wouldn’t bid on that one,” Galina sing-songed. “It was manufactured in a funeral home. Who knows what kind of nasty diseases it carries. Honestly, there should be a rule against her selling them.”

All movement ceased in the church basement. If Ginny had felt cold in the corner before, she was freezing now, inside and out, yet her face burned with heat. How she could listen to such comments her entire life and still have them land like daggers in her chest was beyond her. She should have been a seasoned pro. But in the wake of Galina’s words, she reeled. Her hands shook. Every eye in the room was on her and it took all of her inner strength not to flee the room.

A chair scraped back.

“Can you please watch Ginny’s back while I kill the dumb bitch?” Roksana asked in an oddly formal tone, receiving an immediate—and alarmingly bored—“of course” from Tucker, thus rousing Ginny from her stupor.

“No,” she murmured to Roksana, though she even found it hard to look even her friend in the eye after her embarrassment. “I think…I can do this.”

Until recently, she might have smiled and whispered some altruistic sentiment about killing people with kindness. Not now. Letting people step on her to elevate themselves had been fusing her to the ground for so long. And now that she knew what it felt like